For many years, industry has been concerned with designing improved heaters for articles of manufacture such as seats, mirrors or handles of furniture, automotive vehicles or other transportation vehicles. Examples of such heaters are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,084,217, 5,451,747, 5,045,673, 4,931,627 and 4,857,711 all of which are expressly incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.
Many of these prior heater designs suffer from one or more drawbacks. As one example, many prior heater designs were not configured to accommodate systems such as ventilators, which may also be integrated into an article of manufacture such as a seat of an automotive vehicle. As another example, many prior heater designs employed relatively high cost raw materials, high cost manufacturing processes or the like, which caused the heaters to become relatively expensive.
The present invention therefore provides a heater that addresses one or more of the aforementioned drawbacks or addresses other drawbacks that will become more apparent from a reading of the following description.